Ron Does Stuff

I’ve been busy with errands this weekend so I was unable to watch anything but I am free now! I can catch up! I am still five episodes behind what’s actually being aired and frankly I just want to be able to catch the final episode “live” if you know what I mean.

ANYWAYS. Here we go with episode 8!

At the end of the last episode, Sol Hee point blank asked Do Ha if he had killed anyone and her powers told her that he was lying. AND SO WHAT IF HE DID? LOOK AT HIM?

Seriously though, it would give anyone pause if you find out the person you’re crushing on possibly killed somebody. But as we’ve seen in episode three, her powers only tell her if someone is lying but not the reasons for the lie. There could be more to Do Ha’s lie than we think! However, that’s for future me to tackle because Deuk Chan has arrived to take Do Ha away from Sol Hee and warn him about Eom Ho.

Back at Do Ha’s apartmen, Deuk Chan reminds Do Ha of how quickly the people in Hapcheon turned against him when he became a murder suspect, even if they used to adore him and follow him around before. But Do Ha insists that Sol Hee will believe him, not knowing that she heard his statement that he didn’t kill anybody as a lie. But I guess Do Ha didn’t think he was lying, so that is interesting.

Back at her tarot card cafe, Sol Hee is finding it hard to accept that Do Ha is a killer. She’s telling herself that she probably heard it wrong but also worries about what she’s going to do if it turns out to be a lie once she asks him again. Do Ha, on the other hand, still has full trust in Sol Hee and believes that she won’t tattle on him to the rest of the world.

Sol Hee finally googles (Navers?) Do Ha/Seung Ju to find out what his deal is and finds out that Do Ha/Seung Ju recanted his earlier admission of guilt and said that Eom Ji killed herself on that beach years ago. Do Ha calls her and she doesn’t pick up and I don’t blame you girl!

The next day WE GET A PRODUCT PLACEMENT! Chi Hoon says he didn’t get enough sleep, Sol Hee didn’t get enough sleep, and she asks him what he’s chewing on and he hands her KOPIKO. Oh good golly I need to wake up says Sol Hee and pops a Kopiko candy into her mouth. It’s just as ~smooth~ as that Biogesic product placement in Maging Sino Ka Man. I can’t find it on YouTube but trust me!

Across town Syaon is getting a scolding from Deuk Chan but honestly get her a therapist. You can’t be doing all this for a guy that hasn’t even dicked you down yet! You don’t know if the dick is good! Even if he looks like this!

Meanwhile, we get another snippet from Do Ha’s past as Seung Ju. From what we’re shown, it looks like Eom Ji tried to kill herself and in a fit of rage — because what little we’ve seen of Eom Ji has been of her being a needy, needy person — Do Ha/Seung Ju tells her that if she wants to die then she should die. Which I guess is why he first admitted to “killing” her.

Do Ha and Sol Hee meet later that night and as Do Ha begins to tell her the truth as he knows it, she gets a call from Chi Hoon and as she rejects the call the phone screen shows what she was last looking at — which is Do Ha/Sung Ju’s graduation picture with the caption “Graduation photo of Hakcheon Beach murderer” and Do Ha sees it too. Sol Hee admits that she looked it up after everything that went down and Do Ha admits he would have done the same.

Sol Hee asks him again if he killed Eom Ji and credit to Do Ha he’s perceptive enough and asks her if she’s asking it again because she heard his answer as a lie. So he repeats it again and again, the lie detector determined that was a lie. Sol Hee is asking him to make an excuse or anything but Do Ha says he can’t because she might hear it as a lie again.

I do wonder what the details of Sol Hee’s powers are. We already know that it doesn’t tell her why people lie but what if someone says something that is true to them? Something that they believe so fervently that it is true to them but maybe not to the rest of the world? Will that register as a lie or the truth?

Either way, this looks to be the big stumbling block in the relationship. Can’t blame Sol Hee because unless you’re one of those Bundy groupies would you really want to be with someone you knew with some certainty was a murderer?

As a matter of fact, Sol Hee does sound a bit like one of the Bundy girls when she calls up Do Ha later, maybe a little tipsy, asking him whether there was a reason as to why he killed Eom Ji. She’s still stewing over it later while she’s walking home drunk and when she almost gets into a fight with an already fighting couple, Do Ha steps in to defuse the situation.

Do Ha drives her home and as they arrive at their apartment units Sol Hee tries to ask him out for the next day, either to eat hangover soup or jajangmyeon. She tells him that they can just eat and not talk about anything. Do Ha asks her if she’s afraid that what he’s going to say is going to be a lie again and then follows it up by asking her if she can hear her own lies. She tells him that she just finds it hard to believe that he’s lying about being a murderer and honestly I just want this particular part of the story cleared up now because it’s been a combined eight hours and more of show already. That’s a whole workday!

But we’re going to leave that part of the story behind for a moment as we follow Do Ha’s mother’s plot. She’s speaking in front of a group of single mothers about a single mother program that her party have come up with and she remembers what Do Ha told her in the previous episode — she’s using her single motherhood just as a tool for political gain. Once her speaking engagement is over her party mate tells her that she’s going to support her run for provincial governor as long as she makes sure that Do Ha doesn’t make trouble for her and the intense music immediately starts and she asks her assistant to hand her her phone.

But it’s not Do Ha that she meets up with! It’s Deuk Chan! OOOHHHH WILL MY THEORY BE PROVEN CORRECT? IS DEUK CHAN THE REAL KILLER? There’s no confirmation in the conversation that Deuk Chan is the killer, but both Do Ha’s mother and Deuk Chan agree that it would be better for the both of them if Do Ha wasn’t in Korea. Unbeknownst to them, Eom Ho has been watching them from afar. How is this guy getting into all of this swanky venues? Koreans won’t let foreigners in certain venues but even a guy in a regular outfit can get in?

Meanwhile, Syaon calls Do Ha and finally gets a meeting, and I have to say I really do hate her? There’s just something about people who emotionally manipulate that just gets me heated. Do Ha tells her to just stay away from him and in a last ditch attempt to get him on her side Syaon tells him that she doesn’t care what happened in the past. “So you believe I killed her?” or something along those lines is Do Ha’s response and I guess that’s a nuance I didn’t consider. I am having trouble seeing how that’s worse than Sol Hee refusing to believe he’s a killer, but maybe I am just missing something! Maybe it’s about finding out what really is “true” between what you personally know of a person and what society thinks of that person? It’s complicated! Because bad people aren’t bad to everyone. Just because someone is good to you doesn’t mean they can’t be bad to someone else.

Despite still being devastated by Do Ha’s lie, Sol Hee goes on with doing her job, with her next assignment involving being in a hospital. As she arrives, she sees Kang Min step out the elevator and sees him go inside the Gastric Cancer Center. Don’t tell me he has freaking cancer. Is he going to die? I do not handle deaths from cancer really well I’m sorry. THANKFULLY, seems like he is in remission!

Sol Hee’s new assignment is trying to find out whether this CEO’s family is lying to him about his illness and turns out they are! But they’re lying to him because they don’t want him to know that he’s dying, I guess? I would like to know but that’s just me! Afterwards, the CEO tells Sol Hee that he’ll just play along with everyone’s lies because “When you hear some lies, you can feel the sincerity behind them.” And that is a punch to the gut for Sol Hee.

She catches up with Kang Min as he leaves the hospital and asks him what he’s doing there and he lies and says he’s just visiting a friend and this time around, Sol Hee understands why he’s lying. When he asks her out, she says yes.

The next day — I think — Sol Hee is at J Entertainment to meet with Deuk Chan, who asked for this meeting. He wants her to sign an NDA, which she’s willing to do so long as they remove the part where she’s compensated for it. She also tries to find out where Do Ha is now and Deuk Chan lies and says Do Ha’s going to Germany. But really what stuck to my mind is you get compensation when you sign an NDA? So if you sleep with an idol you get paid to not tell? You sleep with an idol and you also get paid? Maybe I am a whore because I’d do it!

Deuk Chan’s next meeting is with Do Ha, and he finally comes clean about Eom Ho being in Seoul and looking for him. Do Ha is alarmed but also asks why Deuk Chan didn’t tell him earlier, to which Deuk Chan responds that he just wanted to see him enjoy an ordinary life for once. These episode really is all about the necessary lies people tell.

Deuk Chan segues into a “you should go to Germany” speech ostensibly for Do Ha’s safety but overplays his hand by mentioning Do Ha’s mother’s election and then fumbles it even further by calling Do Ha a murderer. Rather than run away, Do Ha decides that he’d rather face Eom Ho the next time he shows up rather than run away again. He’s going to face the man that gave him that scar on his back.

Meanwhile, Do Ha’s mom has been duped by Eom Ho into revealing that Do Ha and Seung Ju are one and the same person. I guess that’s a sign that that confrontation Do Ha wants is going to happen sooner rather than later!

But before that confrontation, we see Sol Hee go on her date with Kang Min. She asks him why he liked her despite her family being a mess and he responds because she was kind in spite of her family being a mess. Also because she was pretty.

But Sol Hee eventually tires of the pussyfooting around and directly asks Kang Min how long he’s been sick. Kang Min says he had stage three stomach cancer but he’s okay now. However, Sol Hee wants to know if they were together when he first got diagnosed and when Kang Min says yes, she realizes that that was why Kang Min lied to her all those years ago. As the night wears on Kang Min makes the same observation that I did — Sol Hee can only find out someone is lying but not the reason for that lie.

Like Deuk Chan, Kang Min also overplays his hand. Sol Hee is already sympathetic towards him so he asks to get back togeher with him, but Sol Hee is honest and says she’s thinking of somebody else right now. To his credit, Kang Min doesn’t show he’s disappointed but instead tells her to tell Do Ha how he feels and then adds that he’ll be waiting. I’ve watched enough K-dramas to know that you’ll be waiting in vain, dude.

In fact, thanks to the realization that she doesn’t know why Do Ha is lying to her, Sol Hee heads to his Hannam residence to talk with him but Eom Ho is already there, pretending to be a security guard. Through a series of circumstances only possible through a K-drama, Do Ha ends up having to go down to make sure Sol Hee is okay, and in the process both him and Sol Hee almost get caught by Eom Ho.

The situation finally pushes Do Ha to tell her that he’s going to share the whole story from the beginning, but Sol Hee says she believes him when he tells her that she didn’t kill Eom Ji. Which I guess is okay in K-drama land but that’s not the thing to do in real life, kids! Especially when it’s murder! Like, don’t immediately drop your friend suspected of it, but be more prudent about declaring that you think they’re innocent.